THE IMPACT OF THE ENGLISH ECONOMIC TERMS IN THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT Museanu Elena Romanian – American University Coanc ; Mariana Romanian – American University In terms of quantity, the English (American) influence in the economic language is striking, remarkable. The adjustment of these terms is brief, relative, which is not a factor favoring the assimilation of loans, but is permissible, in principle, for Anglicisms. In what concerns the need for these loans, it can be deemed that the demarcation between “necessary loans” and “luxury loans” is not yet solid. Low frequency or isolated Anglicisms may be classified into the second category (some may even affect proper specialized communication). Even if enough Anglicisms recorded in the economic press will not remain in Romanian, "the era of the Internet, of globalization"94, we may consider a greater influence of English in the economy (perhaps similar to computer science). Keywords: Anglicisms, economic terms, specialized communication I.1. Our research is focused on analyzing the importance of economic terminology for broader socio-professional groups. An observation that emerges is the representative presence and use of English terms in texts which seek their spread beyond the field of specialists. Such texts belong, in general, to a certain type of media – the “popularizing” press, eventually the press of “scientific popularization”. The interest in such cases is amplified when there is an obvious extra linguistic reasoning, such as the case of a part of economic terminology in Romania since 1990, a period characterized by profound economic changes. These extra linguistic realities sometimes need to be defined by explicit terms (and the scientific terms must generally be mono-semantic and, therefore, precise). Explaining the meaning of specialized terms to ensure the accuracy of their interpretation and use by laypersons requires greater than in other terminology, careful analysis of the relation between specialized definition, lexicographical definition of and texts 95 . The analysis has started from a corpus of English terms 96 which distinguish themselves by high frequency and, hence by their significance for expressing various concepts. The general economic press or the economic popularizing press represents an objective source for determining important English terms. A survey has been carried out upon the economic press intended for laypersons. English terms, frequently used in the business environment, have been excerpted, which have been classified according to their occurrence in various publications or weekly newspapers: Ziarul Financiar , Capital (Capital TV) , Adev ;rul economic , S;pt ;mâna financiar ;, Averea , Bursa , Banii No 2tri, Business Standard 97 . These terms with English form, marked as novelty both by form and meaning, are generally mono-semantic, which grants them an obvious specialized nature. The presence of specialized English terms can be a challenge as they occur frequently in mass media and the layperson has no means (dictionaries do not list them, in general) to understand 94 See A.Stoichi Xoiu-Ichim 2006: 24 – 25. 95 Concerning various issues of scientific terminologies in terms of the interest for linguistics, on one hand, and for ordinary communication, see A Bidu-Vr ;nceanu 2007. 96 The analysis hereby will consider the works analyzing the importance of the English influence in the current Romanian. See in this respect A. Stoichi Xoiu-Ichim 2006. 97 To be mentioned that this publication overtakes TV shows of channels specialized in economy (Money Channel) 181 their mere broad meaning. However, some contexts attempt an explanation of the term’s use, which triggers the advantage of some sort of decoding and even assimilation. For example: “if last year only TV channels were SOLD-OUT (their advertising space had been already sold – ed. note), Capital , 2007, no. 29, or a YIELD of 7.25%, namely return of 7.25%” (paraphrasing), Capital, 2006, no. 27, pp. 17 or “Tax DUMPING, respectively a lower taxation level than the European average….”, Saptamana financiara, 2006, June 19, pp. 14 or “EPS – EARNING PER SHARE”, Bursa , 2007, no. 87, pp. 3, etc. However, it is not a rule to attempt explaining the new English terms in the context where they appear. The focus is on what happens with the other classes of English terms. I.2. The Anglicization is a trend in existing languages, namely to let the vocabulary assimilate the English influence. This is a highly interesting phenomenon given the internationalization trend, which displays a new dimension of the contact between languages. We should underline here the significance of English words, which we have also analyzed in our approach of the economic terms deriving from French 98 . Considering a different approach, most of the terms falling into this class (such as BUSINESS TREND, TARGET, etc.) are deemed by A. Stoichitoiu-Ichim 2006 as “luxury loans”, which does not arise from our analysis. What interests here is, at what extent, some terms – noted by specialists, appear as less necessary. Therefore, experts insist that Anglicisms are loans both from British English and American English, which – for different and complex reasons – are “under adjustment” 99 . Therefore, they cannot be classified in the category of completely assimilated loans , nor as non-assimilated called xenisms or foreignists 100 . Other experts consider Aglicisms as "foreign words that maintain the foreign look in spelling, pronunciation or inflexion” 101 . According to the latter perspective, adjustment problems would not constitute a failure of this category of loans. The analysis of the economic terms of English origin carried out hereby is useful to determine the influence of the English language in the Romanian vocabulary, and especially in the economic vocabulary, although "certainly many of these words will not remain in the language as they do not meet the requirements for assimilation in the Romanian language" 102 . The current Romanian press uses many Anglicisms whose definitions are not found in general or specialized dictionaries, although they belong to different terminologies, which proves that in some cases, they have exceeded the boundaries of strict specialization, migrating to the common language. I.3. Based on broad materials 103 provided by the aforementioned widespread press, we will handle the following issues regarding Anglicisms: their form adjustment – in terms of phonetics, spelling, morphology (II and III); terms are mainly grouped according to their higher (II 1) or lower (II 2) frequency. Given that economic Anglicisms are used as simple terms, as well as in complex forms of different types (composed and syntagmas), we will also attempt to classify the material according to this approach (IV). The Anglicisms’ decoding by laypersons could be favored if these terms are to be listed in dictionaries (specialized, but mainly general), however the analysis does not have a positive answer for such requirement (V). Finally, the semantic areas to which belong the economic terms deriving from English words could increase their linguistic chances and, implicitly, the significance of such type of influence in the Romanian language. 98 See. A.Stoichi Xoiu-Ichim 2006: 16 – 17. 99 See. A.Stoichi Xoiu-Ichim 2006: 29. 100 See. A.Stoichi Xoiu-Ichim 2006: 28, even if the solid demarcation of these classes is deemed difficult, the incomplete adjustments keeps its significance (see A.Stoichi Xoiu-Ichim 2006: 34), which is not an advantage in terms of loans’ implementation. 101 See discussions in A.Stoichi Xoiu-Ichim 2006: 32. 102 See A.Stoichi Xoiu-Ichim 2006: 19. 103 We shall not list here all occurrences recorded, but only in strictly necessary and relevant situations. 182 II . We will try below to see what issues arise from the English words from the economic press. Our intention is to ascertain the difficulties Anglicisms have to adjust to the Romanian phonetic, inflexion system, etc. fluctuations in their writing, meaning extending or restricting and similar situations. 1. A first class of Anglicisms, whose presence is noticed repeatedly and which appear quite often in the economic press (in every issue and even several times in the same newspaper) gathers the following terms: TREND, BROKER, BRAND, LEASING, BUSINESS, RETAIL (RETAILER, RETAILING), RATING, TRAINING, HOLDING, TRUST, SPONSOR, DEALER (DEAL), TARGET, DISCOUNT, TRADE, JOB, BOOM, DUMPING, PLANNING etc. We have listed in the following several examples for these terms, highly used in the economic press under investigation and, therefore, in the economic environment: „The Bucharest Stock Exchange might resume an upward TREND”, Business Standard , 2007, no. 92, or „a closing of almost 1.3400 of the EUR/USD rate might lead to a continuation of the downward TREND”, Capital , 2007, no. 23, pp.34, „TREND The domestic media market is developing by integrating operations in large entities”, Capital , 2007, no.7, pp.20. We can note the term’s linguistic integration both by sound and spelling forms, which do not pose any issues, and, also, by an inflexion typical to Romania; moreover, a positive role is played by the term’s establishment in somewhat stable syntagmas. „BROKERS expect increases after the nine month results”, Business Standard , 2007, no.92, or „Basically, the BROKER, not the client shall demand the release of the statements of account. In short time, all agencies of BROKERAGE companies in the country will be able to demand such services”, Capital